for the caste Hindus and the Muslims and separate representation for the Scheduled Castes; and start of discussions for a new constitution. The proposal displeased everyone. The Simla Conference held between June and July , ended without resolution. The talks broke down on the right of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League to nominate members to the Viceroy’s Council.
Simla Conference ( ) The Muslim League insisted on its exclusive right to nominate Muslim members to the Council. Its demand was that the Congress nominees shall only be caste Hindus and that the Indian National Congress should not nominate a Muslim or a member from the Scheduled Caste! This was seen as a means to further the divide on communal lines and deny the Congress the status of representing the Indian people. Lord Wavell found a council without Muslim League representation as unworkable and thus abandoned the Simla talks.
The years between the Lahore resolution of and the Simla Conference in marked the consolidation of a Muslim national identity and the emergence of Jinnah as its sole spokesperson. It was at a convention of Muslim League Legislators in Delhi in April , that Pakistan was defined as a ‘sovereign independent state’. For the first time the League also declared its composition in geographical terms as ‘the region consisting of the Muslim majority provinces of Bengal and Assam in the Northeast and the Punjab, North-West • A post-war commission to be formed to demarcate contiguous districts where the Muslims were in absolute majority and a plebiscite of the adult population there to ascertain whether they would prefer Pakistan; • In case of a partition there would be a mutual agreement to run certain essential services, like defence or communication; • The border districts could choose to join either of the two sovereign states; • The implementation of the scheme would wait till after full transfer of power. After his release from prison, Gandhi, in July , proposed talks with Jinnah based on what came to be the ‘Rajaji formula’.
The talks did not go anywhere. Wavell